A phone dropped in water, or with a drink spilled over it, can often be saved. What decides it is what you do in the first few minutes, and the most common advice people give is wrong.
The danger is not the water itself. It is electricity flowing through the water while the phone is on, and corrosion that starts over the following days, especially with salty, sugary or dirty water.
Do this straight away
- Get it out and switch it off. Hold the power button and turn it off. Do not wait to see if it still works.
- Do not charge it. Not to check it, not for a minute. Charging a wet phone is the most reliable way to kill it.
- Take off the case, and take out the SIM tray and memory card. The open slot lets air in.
- Dry the outside with a soft cloth or tissue. Shake it gently with the charging port facing down to get water out of the openings.
- Leave it somewhere dry with air moving, port facing down, for at least 24 hours, ideally 48. A table under a fan is good.
What not to do
- Do not put it in rice. Rice does not pull water out of a sealed phone any faster than air does, and it leaves dust and starch in the charging port. Apple and Samsung both advise against it.
- Do not use a hair dryer on hot, put it in the sun, or put it near a stove or in a microwave. Heat damages the battery and the screen glue.
- Do not press the buttons repeatedly to check whether it works. Every button press pushes water further in.
- Do not blow into the ports. Your breath is wet.
If it was salt water, a drink, or dirty water
Sea water, soft drinks, tea with sugar and gutter water leave residue that corrodes the board even after the phone has dried. If this is what happened, take it to a repair technician the same day and ask for it to be opened and cleaned. The phone may work for a week and then fail, because the corrosion keeps going.
Is your phone water resistant?
Many recent phones carry an IP67 or IP68 rating. That means it survived a test in clean, still water for a limited time. It does not cover sea water, swimming pools, a washing machine, or water pressure from a tap, and the protection weakens as the phone ages or after a screen repair. Water damage is almost never covered by the warranty either.
If your phone shows a "moisture detected" or "liquid in port" warning, it is working as intended. Unplug, let the port dry, and do not override the warning.
After 48 hours
Switch it on. If it works, back up your photos and contacts now, while it still does. Check the speakers, the microphone, the camera and charging. Crackly sound or a fogged camera usually clear as the last moisture leaves; a phone that heats up, will not charge, or shows lines on the screen needs a technician.
If it will not switch on
Your photos may still be safe. If you had Google Photos or iCloud backup switched on, they are already in your account. A good repair shop can often recover data from a board that will not boot, so say that the data matters more to you than the phone before they start.
Taking it for repair
Before handing a phone over, remove your SIM and memory card, and sign out of mobile money apps if you can. Ask for a quote before work starts. In Ghana, most areas have phone repair shops; choose one that opens the phone in front of you or explains what was replaced, and ask to keep the old part.